THAT WOULD BE A GENIUS MOVE. I DON'T KNOW IF THEY'RE THAT SMART: And that's why I love Survivor. Two forms of self-immolation, and that's just about all I'm going to say.
Okay, I'll say a little more. Tyson made a dumb move in a smart person's game, resulting in his own ouster, and what Russell pulled was just beautiful -- both in persuading Tyson to flip his vote and in the transfer of the immunity Idol. Really: in a nine person tribe, he forced the elimination of someone who had only three votes against him? Genius.
As for the Heroes tribe, apparently the only winning move is not to play. Good job, Colby.
You're selling Tyson awfully short there. That move was so epically, inexplicably dumb that dumb called, and it wants its dumb back. Credit to Russell for having the sack to even try -- hell, maybe he really knew Tyson would be that dumb.
ReplyDeleteThis took me a while to realize: Russell was smart enough to know that the other alliance was smart enough to split its votes somehow and not just cast them all against him. So they'd want to split votes. What I don't know is how he'd know Tyson was supposed to vote for him and needed to be switched -- if Tyson was going to vote for Parvati anyway, then it's a 3-3-3 with Russell himself then losing in the revote.
ReplyDeleteI think he must have just been taking a stab in the dark, trying to work on Tyson's desire to get rid of Parvati, and figuring "either this works, or I'm screwed anyway." Unless he directly overheard the strategy or someone told him, there's just no way Russell could have known the breakdown of who was supposed to be voting for whom.
ReplyDeleteI may be misinterpreting your last thought, but I believe the plan was that Tyson (with Rob and Sandra) was supposed to vote for Russell, and Courtney, Coach and Jerri would vote for Parvati. The expectation was that the Russell/Parvati/Danielle alliance would all cast their votes for the same person (and Rob accurately predicted Tyson). So Tyson's flip made absolutely no strategic sense - if Russell's telling you the truth about throwing his own vote to Parvati to protect himself, then that's FOUR votes for Parvati, three-way tie averted. STICK TO THE PLAN! If (as you should expect) he's bullshitting you, then STICK TO THE PLAN!
Indeed, I wasn't grokking your last point fully -- now I do. Nevermind the first part of my second paragraph; last three sentences still apply.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the deal with Rupert these days? In his interviews, he stares at the camera without blinking. At all. It's creeping me out. (And given that I already think Rupert acts like Robin Williams doing an impression of a self-righteous baby, that's a lot of additional creepiness.)
ReplyDeleteFrom a Sepinwall commenter:
ReplyDelete"Also, according to his day after interview: Tyson thought Parvati and Danielle would turn on Russell to save themselves, thus making it a 5-3-1 vote and he REALLY wanted Parvati gone so switched to make it 4-4-1 and then Parvati goes in the tiebreaker vote. So he really hated Parvati and it had nothing to do with Russell, as much as the editors make you want to think it did."
Thoughts on whether we're being set up for a Colby's comeback story?
ReplyDeleteWow. I haven't read Alan's post or the comments over there yet, but if that's Tyson's position, then his rationale is an even dumber one than I was willing to entertain on his behalf.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of the quantum of stupidity in Tyson's reasoning, why wouldn't he bring this supposedly rock-solid (again, coming from Russell, so actually bullshit) information about Russell's flip back to his alliance? On matters of strategy, Rule #1 should be let Boston Rob be the big thinker. BR knew exactly what was going to happen right down the line on that vote -- he just didn't think to anticipate Tyson being a complete and total idiot.
(Also? Bad job by the editing team during that Tribal: we needed WAY more shots of Tyson's progressive reactions to the reading of the votes.)
Oh, there was one shot where I hit the pause button and said to Jen, "See? That's when he realized he fucked up." I think it was right after Russell swapped the Idol.
ReplyDeleteI wanted more B-Rob reaction shots, but you're right on the main point: when in doubt, tell Rob and let him sort it out.
NYMag is succinct:
ReplyDeleteRussell had the individual-immunity idol and lied about it.
Rob knew Russell had the individual-immunity idol and was lying about it.
Rob, to get into Russell's head, told him he'd better find the idol, because otherwise he was going home.
Russell knew Rob was trying to get into his head and that Parvati was the real target.
Rob knew Russell would figure out Parvati was the real target, and possibly give her the idol. He told his team to split their six votes, which would lead to a 3–3–3 tie; whether Russell or Parvati played the idol, the tie would force a redo, the idol would already be spent, and the ruling alliance could pick their victim. Russell suspected they'd split the six votes, so he gave an Academy Award–worthy performance for Tyson where he vowed to vote off Parvati. This convinced Tyson (who was assigned to vote for Russell) to ignore his tribemates' instructions and vote for his true favored target, Parv (watch it below!).
Rob gave a Daytime Emmy–worthy performance for Russell where he insisted that Russell was the target of the vote, but it convinced him of nothing. Russell gave a BAFTA-worthy speech in which he seemed about to play the idol, but presented it to Parvati instead, who did play it. With Tyson voting for the immune Parvati, giving her four votes, there was no tie, and the person with the next highest number of votes was … Tyson.
Read more: Survivor Recap: Well Played -- Vulture http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/03/survivor_recap_russell_boston.html#ixzz0jCMLNWS2
I assumed that Russel knew to go after Tyson b/c Coach told him the plan. Coach bowed before Russell (literally) last week, and so I have to assume they are sharing information and working together quietly until Russell needs Coach to be public.
ReplyDeleteHow odd; I was just talking about the Australia season of Survivor last night with the GF and my main point was that usually the ruthless win the show, which made it all the more impressive that Colby managed to come in second (and if I'm remebering right, the winner (Tina?) was pretty well liked as well.
ReplyDeleteBut ruthless and smart. Not only in axing Jerri once they had the safe numbers to do so, but ... from Wiki's summary of the episode of the merge at 5-5 (with the weird prior-votes-against tiebreaker):
ReplyDeleteAt the immunity challenge, the tribes joked around for a little while. Nick, who had been sick for the last couple of days, jumped off first after an hour and a half. Colby was next to go. Colby’s strategy was to get people to vote for him instead of Keith and Jerri since he had no prior votes. After 4 hours, Jeff brought out peanut butter, chocolate, and apples and Rodger bailed. Colby convinced Jeff to jump off, saying that the women were bound and determined to win. After 6 hours and 47 minutes, Jerri and Amber jumped off for ice cream and chocolate. 8 hours and 58 minutes elapsed and Elisabeth stepped down for a boat ride back to the beach. Hot coffee/hot chocolate and a boat ride to shore got Alicia to step down after 10 hours and 17 minutes. Keith told Tina that he needed the immunity, and Tina stepped down as well, giving Keith the first individual immunity.
At tribal council, it was clear that Barramundi was still divided. The Ogakor 5 voted for Jeff, while the Kucha 5 voted for Colby. During his vote, Colby said that it was a strategic move that was decided the first week they were there (referring to Kimmi telling them that Debb voted for Jeff at the first tribal council). During the revote, they were still deadlocked 4-4. With “the one vote that he knew of” (which was actually 2), Jeff was sent packing as the final person out before the jury.